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COPYRIGHT 1917 
BY J. N. KIMBALL 



S)CU477173 
OCT 22 1917 



A Tale of the Out-of-Doors 

By J. N. KIMBALL 



I once had a friend, a sailor, who lived in a tiny hut 
close by the sea. I never knew how old he was and I do 
not think he knew himself, but so far as looks went he 
might have been fifty or he might have been a hundred. 
His brow was seamed and his cheeks were scarred and 
a fringe of gray hair made a frame about the lower part 
of his face, but above it were two blue eyes which shone 
with a light that the years had not been able to dim. In 
some way he had put aside money enough to buy the 
small wants of his life and now, his labor ended and his 
voyages done, he had moored his craft and cast his 
anchor in the quiet haven of a little fishing village. Day 
after day he rose with the sun and when his meager 
breakfast was over he "took a reef in his mainsail and 
cleared his decks for action," as he put it, which meant 
that he folded up his table cloth and set the inside of the 
hut in order for the day, then he would take a chair 
just outside the door and watch the breakers as they came 
rolling in to dash their white foreheads on the beach. 
Now and then he would gather about him a group of 
children and tell them tales of the sea but more often he 
would sit alone and read, over and over again, the log 



he had kept during all the years he had been rocked in 
the cradle of the deep. I used to ask myself how he 
could get any comfort out of the dingy pages that told of 
things long gone, of arctic berg and tropic sea, of calm 
and storm, of watch on deck and watch below, and I 
could not answer the question, but I could do so now for 
I know all about it. It is true that I have no log in 
which I have set down the things which have come to 
me in the out-of-doors but I have a memory which runs 
back and dwells with rapture on the least detail of that 
life and I can in turn sit at my cabin door, as the sun 
goes down behind a wilderness of brick and mortar, and 
dig deep into that memory and live over and over again 
the events as they come back to me. And I pity the 
man who has no such memories and more than all do I 
pity the boy who has had no chance to run wild a part 
of each year; who is not learned in the ways of the 
wood and the field; who has never felt the gladness of 
going about on the damp earth in his bare feet even 
though it brings him sore toes and stone bruises; who 
has not known the joy of hunting for the nest of some 
humble bee to steal its small store of honey and get 
stung for his pains; who has never ridden on the load 
of hay as it came up from the meadow to be almost 
smothered as he tread that hay down in the mow; who 
has not roamed about in the pasture after the curtain 
of night has been let down, in search of the cows which 
should have been milked two hours before; who has not 
chased Dobbin up and down the orchard when the call 
has come to hitch up and drive to town. And why is it 



that these stand out in my mind as among the glad 
things of earth and take the places of others which the 
world would deem to be greater by far — and why do I 
have the wish to be a boy again and to do the same old 
things in the same old way? I think I know. It was 
never meant that I should live hived up in four walls 
all my days like a felon in his cell, for the call of the 
wild was born and bred in me and it will not pass away 
so long as the grass grows and the water runs. There 
was a time when it seemed to me as if the Lord made a 
mistake when he put into my heart a love for field and 
forest, for lake and river and for hill and dale, a love so 
strong that it has had much to do with any success which 
might have been mine in the big city in which my lot 
is cast, but as the years go by I have come to see that 
it was I who made the mistake which I have been so 
apt to ascribe to Him. Of one thing I am sure — the 
barrel of success is made with a round bung hole and 
if one tries to fill that hole with a square peg there will 
be a sad leak in the contents of the barrel, and I am ready 
to pose as the horrible example. And in all I have said 
lies my excuse, if any excuse be needed, for writing a 
tale of the out-of-doors. 

It had been raining for two days — which is a mere 
statement of fact and as such may mean much or little, as 
the case may be, but with us it meant much and very 
much at that. The man who runs the weather had told 
us that it would be cloudy and he was right so far as he 
went, and they were wet clouds for the heavens opened 
and the flood came and had we not been in camp on the 



side of a hill, where the water ran away from us to 
some extent, our little hut, having been turned into a 
house boat, might have sailed off on a trip to some 
foreign land. And it not only rained but we were so far 
up on the side of the mountain that all about us was a 
corpse-like mist which seemed to bore holes in one like 
a gimlet the moment he left the shelter of the camp, 
and all the time from out of that curtain of mist came 
huge drops in vast sheets urged on by a vdnd which 
swept the open side of the hill from the east. It had 
been that way for two days and all that time the six of 
us had moped about the camp with nerves all on edge, 
peeved with the weather and still more peeved with each 
other. We had played cards and chess until we could 
stand them no longer and we had talked politics and 
religion until we might have come to blows if it had not 
been that at meal time we could let off steam by finding 
fault with the cook. How grouchy we might all have 
become is a matter for conjecture but for one saving 
grace, the dumb friend of man which is ever at his 
elbow, or to speak by the card which is ever in his 
pocket — which soothes him in hours of pain and calms 
him in times of anger, and more than all, being often 
in his mouth shuts off impious comment — his pipe. I do 
not know how many of you have what our forefathers 
were wont to call the filthy habit of using tobacco, but 
I do know that such of you as have that habit will be 
of one mind with me when I say that there are many 
things in this old world of ours which I would be willing 
to dispense with before I would part with that bit of 



briar wood and its amber stem. Of course during the 
two days I speak of we had eaten, and we lingered at 
the table just as long as possible to pass away the time, 
but three meals a day were all that were allowed us by 
the rules and if we had tried to break those rules the 
cook would have resigned and left us to starve; but 
there was no rule as to our pipes and that we made the 
best use of them you may be sure. And all the time 
it rained cats and dogs as the saying is, and as I think 
it must have rained when Noah first shut the door of the 
ark and made things snug and trim for his voyage, and 
now at the end of the second day, the supper dishes 
having been taken from the table and washed by Dan 
whose turn it was at the time, each of us sat with his 
pipe in his mouth and pufifed away as if for dear life. 
It was early in September and the weather was not cold 
but the blaze of the open fire felt good and gave an air 
of cheer to the room as night came on. When it was 
fine outside we used to group about the door at night 
and after we had made our plans for the next day we 
would sing and spin yarns and watch the stars as they 
came from their hiding places in the sky, or listen to 
the call of some night bird in the depth of the wood; but 
after two days in jail one does not care to plan for the 
morrow and has no mind to sing unless it be a dirge, 
and as for story telling, at such a time one could not tell 
the truth if he tried — and so we sat there each of us as 
dumb as an oyster and as silent as a clam. When the 
fire got low one of the boys, we called him "Beef" 
because of his size, was elected to go out and bring in 



an arm full of wood from the pile which we kept dry 
in the shed and when he came back and sat down in a 
chair the water ran off him and made pools on the 
floor in which Dick proposed that we go fishing, but the 
joke, if it was one, fell flat. 

I do not know how long we sat there that night as 
mum and as glum as mourners at a funeral but by and 
by, above the sound of the rain as the fierce gusts of 
wind drove it against the roof and window panes, we 
heard a soft scratch at the door as if the limb of a tree 
were brushing it on the outside; even such a trifle as 
that broke the tension on our nerves and each of us sat up 
to listen. Two or three times we heard the same sound 
and then I told Dick to get up and open the door and 
find out what it was. He said that if he did so it would 
let in water enough to drown us, but left his seat and 
putting his shoulder to the door, so that the savage wind 
should not get the better of him, he opened it a foot 
or two and then the cause of the scratching was made 
plain to us for there entered a visitor on four legs and 
dripping with water from every hair of his small body. 
For a minute or two none of us could get much of an 
idea of our caller but he gave a shake, sending the water 
about him in a shower, and then we saw that he was 
what in courtesy might be called a dog. He glanced 
about the place and up into the faces of each of us in 
turn, as if to find out what sort of a welcome he was 
to get, and seeing nothing that promised trouble he 
went up to the fire and lay down in front of it, tilting 
his head first to one side and then to the other as much 



as to say: "Here I am and I am mighty glad to be 
here I can tell you, for if you but knew it it is not good 
dog weather out of doors." Up to that time none of 
us had said a word but after the dog had dried off a 
bit Dan got up and went to the cupboard to "see if he 
could find something for the mut to eat;" he did so and 
the dog ate it and gave thanks so far as he was able, 
and by that time it was "us for the hay" as Dick put it, 
which meant that it was time to go to bed. How that 
dog got to know that I was the boss I cannot tell but in 
some way he did find it out and then he put himself 
under my wing. Our beds were of the usual kind to 
be found in a camp, a tier of bunks on the side of the 
room like berths in a sleeping car. In a short time 
every man of the six was in his little cubby hole and 
then the dog got up from the fire and walking along the 
line of bunks jumped up into mine and curled up at my 
feet, watching all the time out of the corner of his 
eye to see if I made any fuss about it. I did not for 
there was plenty of room and I soon forgot all about the 
brute and lay there lulled by the rain as it pounded on 
the roof and the hiss of the wind as it wound around 
the corner of the cabin, but at length even those sounds 
died out and I was off and away to the land of dreams. 
I awoke early, in fact the rest of the tribe were still 
snoring in chorus when I opened my eyes to note that 
the first streaks of dawn were to be seen in the east, 
then I put on the few clothes I wore and went out of 
doors with the dog at my heels. H there is one thing 
I like to do when I am out in the woods it is to get up 



8 

early and take my fill of the peace and quiet, but if I 
am in town it is not at all the same for there is no quiet, 
my ears are deafened by the eternal noise and so 
there is no reason why I should get up before I have 
to do so. When I left the open door of the camp and 
put my feet on the ground the sun was just peeping 
over the hills and not a cloud was in the sky. There 
was not a breath of air and except the dog no living 
thing was visible to my eye and no sound broke upon 
my ear; it was a silence so intense that it could be felt 
almost as one feels a blow. Down in the valley a dense 
fog lay over the damp earth but so low that the tops of 
the trees stuck up through it as if the mighty rain of 
the past two days had flooded the lower land but not 
quite deep enough to cover the forest, but the fog was 
soon sucked up by the warm sun and through the clear 
air, washed clean by the rain, I could see the ranges 
of hills as they rose one above the other for miles and 
miles; it was good to look at and as I sat on a stump 
to enjoy it the dog came and lay at my feet and for the 
first time I had a chance to make a study of him. I 
saw at once that if he had any good points at all he 
was so modest about it that he kept them hid from the 
gaze of the vulgar. He had points enough to be sure, 
in fact he was all points, but they were not good ones 
for there was no part of him that was not so badly 
damaged that I could see he would never take even the 
booby prize in a dog show; in the first place there was 
not enough of him left for the judges to sit upon, and 
then again it would be hard to tell in what class to put 



him for there was no breed known to me that did not 
seem to show in some part of his makeup. He was 
thin, so thin that he hardly cast any shadow at all at 
noon, and his ribs stuck out from his sides like the slats 
of a peach crate until he looked for all the world like a 
boat that has lain for years on the beach the prey of 
the wind and the wave. One of his ears he had got 
from some forbear of the hound breed and when he ran 
it flopped about like a sail in a gale of wind, and maybe 
he got the other ear at the same shop but if so he had 
lost part of it and what was left stuck out like a jib 
and gave that side of him a saucy air that was not at 
all in harmony with the rest of his relics. 1 have no 
doubt he was meant to be a white dog when he was 
designed but it was not a good job for he had daubs 
of yellow and black all over him, just as if he had gone 
into a paint store and got mixed up with the wet brushes. 
The spots were put on at random and with no attempt 
at art and one of the black ones was over his left eye 
and it gave one an idea that he had been out late at 
night with a chip on his shoulder and had got the worst 
of it. As a rule a dog is so built that it can use its tail 
as a rudder but this dog was not made in that way. No 
doubt his tail was all right when he was born but I 
judge that he sat down too hard on it one day and was 
never able to get the kink out of it and from that time 
on the after part of it stood out at right angles so that 
when he wagged it to and fro it made one think of a 
sickle. His hair, where it had not been removed by 
accident, was short and wiry which was not a bad 



10 

thing for it did not make a good pasture for fleas. Now 
you will see that taken all in all he was not what you 
would call a pretty dog but we found out later that he 
had brains to burn and as between brains and beauty, 
whether they go about on two legs or four, I give my 
vote for brains every time. As the days went by no one 
called to hunt him up and he did not seem to care to 
go back to the place from whence he came, wherever 
that may have been, for he knew a good thing when he 
saw it and was wise enough to grab hold of it. The 
boys tried every dog name they could think of on him 
but not one of them seemed to strike him as at all 
familiar and at last it was decided to fit him out with 
a new one, one which should not only be easy to speak 
but which at the same time would be in keeping with his 
general style, so from that time on we called him "Ruin," 
and like the man in the story he did not seem to mind 
what we called him so long as we did not call him too 
late for his meals. 

When I went in to breakfast Ruin went in with me 
and no doubt for the first time in weeks was filled up to 
the muzzle with good things, for the fine weather put 
the boys in the best of humor, our grouch had gone with 
the rain and all was bright and full of cheer. We ate 
early as was our wont and then the gang got out the 
axes, poles, chains and other things and started oflF on 
the work of the day. I did not go with them for it was 
my duty to go out and hunt for a "stake and stones" 
which had been set up a hundred years before to mark 
a corner of the land we were to survey and as I put on 



11 

my hat Ruin wagged his sickle and invited himself to 
go with me. To tell the truth I was not sorry to have 
him go for he was company and of the best kind, a 
thing to talk to when I wanted to talk and which would 
not bother me when I felt inclined to be quiet, and so off 
we went. Ruin and I, each content with the other. I 
found out a lot about him before we got back home — 
that lean and lank as he was he was also as tough as 
spring steel and as tireless as a water wheel and I also 
came to know that he had a nose that was more sensi- 
tive to smells than any other nose I had ever met. Time 
and time again during that first trip he would strike the 
scent of some stray animal of the wood, some prowler 
of the night before, and then he would give vent to a 
long-drawn howl and with a cock of his black eye and 
a twist of his jib ear would look up into my face and 
tell me, as plainly as if in words, that if I had any use 
for that tenant of the wild and would only say so he 
would be glad to show me where it was, that it was just 
like pie for him to do it, only as I was boss he wanted 
to do as I said about it; and all the time he would not 
take his eyes off my face and in some way he would 
know my wishes before I said a word. And he was 
wise in the ways of the animal world and proved it for 
during the day we ran on to a hedgehog whose short 
legs were no match in the way of speed with the long 
ones of Ruin and the beast knew it and stuck its nose 
between its legs and rolled up into a ball and waited for 
an attack which did not come. Ruin simply stuck his 
head over to one side and looked at me as much as to 



12 

say that he had seen that sort of thing before and if 
it was all the same to me he would prefer to leave it 
alone; of course if I thought best he would dance about 
it and maybe scare it to death, but to do other than that 
was simply foolish for the thing was not good to eat 
and there was no use picking a fuss where one would 
get the worst of it no matter how it came out, and so 
far as it lay with him he was for safety first; and then 
after a few more barks, which to me sounded like insults 
which would not look nice in print, he bounded off to 
find some other object of interest. I enjoyed that tramp 
but I think that Ruin enjoyed it even more than I did 
for he went three miles to my one. He would dart off 
into the bushes and be lost to sight for a time and then 
turn up far ahead of me, sitting on his bent tail and 
waiting for me to catch up with him, then he would give 
a bark of joy and start off again to tree some gray 
squirrel or to chase a rabbit to its hole. He shared my 
lunch with me at noon and while I smoked the pipe of 
peace he went to sleep by my side but at the first move 
I made to get up he sprang to his feet and was away 
again on his travels. That night he lay before the fire 
until it was time to go to bed and then he came and 
coiled up at my feet as he had done the night before but 
this time it was with a look on his face that said plainly 
that he was in the right spot and belonged there. 

It was some three weeks after the advent of Ruin 
that we went out to run the last line of our survey. 
The poet has said that nothing is so rare as a day in 
June but on that morning I could not help thinking that 



13 

there are days in autumn which are what days in heaven 
ought to be if the place is at all what I fancy it. Our 
line ran near the top of the mountain and when we got 
up there our eyes rested on a sight which I think not 
one of us will ever forget. Dow<n in the valley, in the 
meadow by the side of the river, the corn was stacked in 
rows like soldiers on parade and between those rows were 
bits of color which I knew to be pumpkins ripe for pies. 
A road wound along the base of the hill and stretched 
away until it spun out into a mere line, like the thread 
of a spider, in the far distance, and that line was edged 
with strips and dots of yellow which I knew to be golden 
rod. In the west the mountains swept the sky and as 
the trees were now bare of leaves we could see the giant 
masses of granite and the white boulders of quartz that 
had been hidden by the foliage during the summer; the 
frame was what we had seen all the time we had been 
there but the picture was not at all like that of June. 
The air, as we drew it deep into our lungs, sent the 
blood racing through our veins; we were full of the joy 
of living and our work went merrily on. Not one of 
us was more happy than Ruin; he would run out of 
sight and be gone a spell and then come back and look 
•up into my face and ask me, in a way that no one could 
fail to understand, if I ever saw anything to beat it, 
and when I would tell him that I never did he would 
rush off again. We soon neared the end of the line 
we were tracing and at last came to a part of the wood 
where the trunks of the trees were bare for many feet 
from the ground. The boys had worked away from me 



14 

for half a mile and had found the corner and I had 
set up my transit to take the course which marked the 
end of the job we had been at work upon for months. 
I had taken a final look through the glass and had made 
the signal that all was right when I heard a low growl 
and looking down saw Ruin at my feet and showing signs 
of trouble. His jib ear stuck up and every hair on his 
back rose stiff and straight and his bent tail stood out 
like the main boom of a sloop; his nose was wrinkled 
and his eyes had an ugly look in them which I had 
never seen there before. I asked him what was the 
matter but he did not stir a muscle and stood there 
with one hind foot lifted in a pose which I knew had 
come down to him from some pointer ancestor. I looked 
at him for a moment and then as I noted the direction 
of his gaze I saw at once the cause of all his anger 
for ahead of us some hundred and fifty feet and lying 
at full length on the limb of a big pine thirty feet from 
the ground was an immense bobcat. I stood still for 
at least five minutes and looked at the beast and all that 
time Ruin did not stir except now and then to take a 
hasty glance at my face as if waiting to hear from me. 
I do not suppose you ever saw a bobcat unless you 
ran on to him in the zoo for he is a thing one would 
not care to keep in the parlor as a pet for the family, 
and even if you have seen him at the zoo no doubt it has 
been under some other name for the one I have used 
was given to him by the farmers whose hen roosts he 
is apt to visit when the nights are dark; they gave him 
one end of his name on account of his tail, which is 



15 

bob to the very last letter of the word, and he got the 
other end because he is one of the cat family, but whether 
he is up or down in the scale as set forth by Darwin 
I do not know. It may be that he is the father of the 
whole cat tribe and on the other hand it may be that 
he was a member of that tribe in the old days but went 
off into the woods and became one of the wild thinsfs 
of the out-of-doors, in which case it did not improve 
his disposition, you can take my word for that. I have 
never had a chance to see him at home and at rest from 
his labors, in the bosom of his family as you might say, 
and so I do not know how he acts at such a time, but 
when I have met him in the woods he has seemed to 
me to have a temper like a crosscut saw and an equal 
desire to show it. His tail, as I have said, is bob to the 
last degree, but that may be a trick put upon him by 
fiature. He may have had a long tail once like other 
cats but if so no doubt he lost a piece of it in a fight for 
he is always fighting, and by and by Nature got peeved 
with him and thought it a waste of good material to 
give him a regular narrative as part of it was sure to be 
lost, and so she gave him a short one to start with and 
to save expense. He has the face of a born anarchist 
and with the same kind of a snarl upon it; there is not 
a trace of humor in him and I have never seen him grin 
even when things were going his way. Of course all 
this is after he has grown up for when he is a kitten he 
is well enough in his way, at least so I have been told. 
When he has reached his full size he weighs about 
twenty pounds — to look at or when he is asleep — but 



16 

if he chances to hit you with one of his paws and means 
business at the time you will think he weighs a good part 
of a ton. He believes in the maxim that he who runs 
away may live to fight some other day, and he acts up 
to his belief when it is possible for him to do so, but if 
he gets in a corner he just rolls up his sleeves and sails 
in without any regard for the rules of the game. When 
he wants to dine he pays a visit to some hen roost or 
lies on the limb of a tree and waits for a dinner to come 
along and if it does wander his way he lands on top of it 
with all four feet and from that time on it belongs to 
him. When he is happy at night he tries to sing and has 
a voice like the crying of a child, but when he is ugly, 
which is his normal state so far as I have known him, 
his voice is like that which you would imagine might 
come from the bottom of Hades when the lid is off and 
there is a row going on down there. All these talents, as 
you will see, place him in a class by himself and he is 
the very last word so far as cats go. 

It was a thing like that which raised the hair on the 
back of Ruin and which lay on the limb of that big pine 
just ahead of us. Had we gone on our way and taken 
no notice of him I doubt if we should have heard any- 
thing from him for he was wise enough to know that 
while he might damage us in a rough and tumble fight 
yet in the long run the two of us would be too many 
for him. But we did not go on for Ruin and I were 
of one mind, we would have a round with that bobcat 
let what would come of it. It was the open season 
for game and as a rule I carried a gun with me and 



17 

had fairly good success with it but I had not taken it 
that morning as we had planned a final hunt for the 
afternoon and wanted to finish our work and get back 
to camp as soon as we could do so, I looked about for 
a stick or stone but could find none and so I walked 
on a few steps at a time and Ruin did the same, always 
with one eye on me and the other on the cat, until we 
got to within forty feet of the pine. Ruin was no coward 
and I knew that he wanted to come to hand grips with 
the cat but I also knew that at best the dog would be 
torn more or less to tatters and I did not want that for 
he was ragged enough as he was without any additions. 
We crept on, our feet making no noise on the soft carpet 
of pine needles and the only sound that broke the still- 
ness was a soft hiss from the cat or a low growl from 
Ruin. When we reached a point about thirty feet from 
the tree the cat no doubt thought of the maxim I have 
quoted, for giving vent to one last spit he jumped free 
and clear twenty feet from his roost and was ofif in long 
leaps as fast as his legs would carry him, with Ruin close 
behind him and filling the air with his short yelps. 

I went back and got my transit and then made my 
way to where the boys had driven the last stake in 
our survey; it was at the highest point on the mountain 
and as we got our tools together we could hear Ruin on 
the track of the cat as the latter tried to throw the dog 
ofif the scent by running around the hill. We hid our 
stuff under a bush for we could come back and get it 
later, w^hereas the cat must be looked after at once if 
we wished to look after it at all, and we wanted to be on 



18 

the job if Ruin should catch up with the beast for we 
knew the dog would tackle an elephant when he got his 
mad up and we also had some idea of the kind of 
claws that cat carried about with him and knew that 
Ruin would stand but little chance unless a diversion 
could be made in his favor at the right time. When the 
cat started we were, as I have said, on the top of the 
ridge and his flight seemed to be around the crest of the 
hill a little lower down; we could hear Ruin as he let out 
yelp after yelp but the sound grew dim and soft and then 
was lost and I feared lest the cat might run in a straight 
line for I knew they were going at a rate that would 
soon take them out of the state if they kept on, but 
they did not. By and by we began to hear the short 
barks again and they soon became clear and strong show- 
ing that the cat was coming back but he had moved down 
the hill fully half way and we ran to try and head him 
off. We did not see the cat although he must have passed 
very close to us but in a moment Ruin came up and 
stopped long enough to tell me in his dog fashion that 
things were going all right so far as he was able to make 
them and then he was off again on the trail of the 
cat. Once more they made the circuit of the hill and 
still further down and I began to see that the bobcat 
had a method in his scheme. A mile to the north there 
was a cave which was know^n to the Indians in the old 
days but which was not easy to find and I doubt if it 
had been visited by any one but me for years. The 
location was given on the map I used in the survey and 
I had spent all of one day hunting it up. I now felt 



19 

sure that the cat was making for that cave and that 
maybe he Hved in it; at any rate it would do no harm 
to act on that surmise as the cat was going that way 
and we could not lose anything by it; if we took a short 
cut down the hill we would be able to get there as soon 
as Ruin and the cat, so we put all the speed we owned 
into our feet and sure enough got to the cave in time 
to head off Ruin who wanted to go in. He did not take 
at all kindly to giving up the chase but I knew better than 
he that it was the part of wisdom to let the animal alone 
in such a place for I had been in there and knew the 
lay of the land. It was not really a cave but only a rift 
in the rock where the hill had been split by some mighty 
freak of nature. The sides were not more than four 
feet apart but they rose for twenty feet or more on each 
hand and the walls were as smooth as the walls of a 
house; not even a cat could climb those walls and at the 
other end, a hundred yards away, the top of the cleft 
was covered by a mass of rock, making that end a cave 
in fact as well as in name. That the bobcat was in there 
I knew, or Ruin knew it for me and I was willing to 
take his word for it as I had entire faith in what his 
nose told him ; he was eager to go in and have it out with 
the cat but I knew he had no more chance in that small 
space than a dory would have with a man-of-war. 

We were tired for we had run more than a mile and the 
sun was hot, moreover if we wanted that bobcat there were 
a few things which it would be well to get before we started 
in, and then again it was near lunch time and the cook 
would be ugly if we were not on hand when the horn 



20 

blew, so I told the boys we would go up to the camp and 
eat and then come back and finish the job. Dick got 
sarcastic and said that maybe if I asked him to do so 
Mr. Bob would sit still and sing there in the cave while 
he was waiting for us to come back and call upon him, 
and that of course he would not be so mean as to light 
out for some other country as soon as our backs were 
turned, but all the same he thought it might be a good 
plan for Beef to stay and stop up the hole while we were 
gone as it was about his size and he would fill it like a 
cork; but I had a trick up my sleeve which I was sure 
would hold the cat where he was for a time at least. I 
carried a small ax in a sheath in my belt for use in the 
brush and with it I now cut and trimmed a sapling 
leaving but two limbs at the top, then I took off my coat 
and put the limbs through the arms and stuck up the 
sapling a few feet in from the mouth of the cave with 
my cap on top for good measure and felt sure that the 
cat would have to be mighty hungry before he would try 
to come out by it. Ruin seemed to think I was a bit 
out of my mind when I called to him to follow me back 
to the camp but after one or two yelps, in which I 
judged he was giving the cat his opinion of him, he ran 
on ahead of me up the hill. 

During our lunch our talk was about what we would 
do with the cat when we got him for we meant to get him 
dead or alive; as a corpse he would make a fine rug but 
what use we could put him to if we got him alive we 
did not know. After the meal was over we armed our- 
selves with pistols, ropes and a couple of blankets and 



21 

set off for the cave; Ruin soon told us that the cat was 
still there and we took out the scarecrow and sat down 
to hatch a scheme for his capture. There was a reward 
of ten dollars for the scalp of a bobcat, that being the 
sum paid by the state to get rid of such a beast, and of 
course the bounty, as it is called, would go to the man 
who caught the cat, so I thought it but fair to offer the 
chance to each of the boys in turn but I got no takers, 
they even went so far as to say that they could not take 
the money in any case because the cat was mine by right 
of discovery. Then I offered to waive my rights and 
appealed to them to think of the honor to be gained by 
the combat, but they said that they were just covered up 
with honor, but on the other hand they thought I needed 
it as much as any man they knew and were not only 
glad of the chance to let me have it but hoped I would 
get a big dose. Then I tried to touch up their pride by 
pointing out that there was more than a trifle of danger 
in going in after the cat; I told them that while I liked 
danger, that it was my middle name as it were, yet I 
was not so sordid but that I would share it with them — 
but they all spoke at once and said it would not be right 
to deprive me of a thing I liked, and Dan added that 
there was another reason why I should go in first; he 
said that I was the only one who was acquainted with 
the cat, that I had been introduced to him on top of 
the hill and they had not and he might take it amiss if 
a stranger intruded upon him in his privacy. Then 
they said that of course they would be right behind me, or 
at least a little way behind, and would be glad to help 



22 

me with applause when I appeared to deserve it or to 
send for a hearse if I did not have good luck. There 
was nothing else to do so I made ready for the attempt 
and with a pistol in one hand and a blanket in the other 
started in. Beef wanted to come in last but the boys 
would not allow it for they said if they should want to 
go out after anything they might be in haste and not 
able to get by him in the time they had to spare, so they 
put him next to me, then Dick and then the rest of them 
in single file. We went on slowly; I was in no hurry 
for the day was young and there was plenty of time and 
no need to get into a sweat over it. It was very cool 
down in that dungeon and with the trees shading the top 
it was so nice that I wanted to sit down for a spell and 
enjoy it but for some reason the boys would not hear of 
it, they urged me on and on I went. The bottom of the 
cleft was six inches deep with dead leaves and dust and 
my feet made no sound, which seemed good to me until 
the thought came to my mind that the feet of the cat 
would make no sound either, and then I tried to forget 
about it. It was not very dark in the place and for the 
first half of the trip the soft light which came through 
the trees from above showed all things plainly but as 
we went on the light grew dim and toward the end it 
was hard to see what was ten feet ahead of us. We 
were about to turn what I knew t6 be the last corner 
when Beef said that he had dug up a good idea and I 
sat down to let him air it; he said why not set fire to the 
mass of dead leaves at the bottom of the cleft and smoke 
the cat out, but he lost interest in his scheme when it 



23 

was hinted by Dan that in that case the cat might want 
to get out quickly and as Beef filled the passage he would 
have a dandy time of it before the beast got by him. 
As I have said the top of the cave at the end was 
covered by a mass of rock and at that point there was a 
sharp turn so that we could be quite close to the cat and 
still not be able to see him even if it were light and 
surely not in that dim twilight. We had tied a rope 
about the neck of the dog in order to hold him back but 
as we turned the corner he grew frantic and filled the 
place with his yelps and by and by a sharp hiss told us 
that our quarry was at bay at the very last inch of the 
cave and that the danger, if any were to be met, lay 
before us. There was not much time to think but I used 
it all, and one of my thoughts was as to whether or not 
my accident policy was good in a case like that; it was 
up at the camp and I wanted to go back after it but the 
boys said I could do it later, that no doubt I would have 
to do it anyhow after I got through with the job I had 
on hand and so it was just as well to wait. Not to be 
selfish I once more offered my place to any one of them 
who cared for it but met with no response, so I started 
round the corner on my hands and knees as by going that 
way I should not stub my toes and because I had an idea 
that I was not so good a target on all fours as I would 
be if standing up. I crept on ten or twelve feet and as 
my eyes got used to the darkness I saw a dim shape with 
its back to the rock at the very end of the cave and knew 
it must be the cat but it looked to me to be as big as a 
cow. His two eyes shone in the dusk like the lamps of 



24 

an auto and he hissed and spit and made other noises 
which did not sound good to me nor in any way add to 
my peace of mind, so I stopped and looked at him and 
all the time I felt that he was doing the same thing and 
that each of us was waiting for the other to begin. I 
was sure that any hasty move on my part would make 
him give a spring and I knew that there was but one 
place for him to land — on my back — so I kept very quiet 
indeed. I needed two hands for the plan I had in mind 
so I lay down my pistol and slowly, very slowly you may 
be sure, held up the blanket by two corners until it hung 
like a curtain between us. Just then the dust from the 
floor got into my nose and I had to sneeze — it was too 
much for the bobcat and he gave one jump and cleared 
the eight or ten feet between us aiming at the place where 
my face ought to be and where it would have been had it 
not been for the blanket. But the blanket was there 
and he struck it full and fair in the center and quick 
as he was he was not quick enough to prevent me from 
folding it about him and rolling over on top of the bundle 
with Ruin on top of me. Then I yelled to the boys to 
give me the other blanket but at the first echo of the 
strife they had run to the mouth of the cave — to keep the 
cat from going out, they said — and save only for Ruin I 
was alone with my prize package. I cared little for that 
for the blanket was almost as hard as a board and while 
the teeth and claws of the animal came through in more 
than one place and my hands and arms were covered with 
blood, yet he failed to get any nearer to freedom and at 
last lay still worn out by his exertions. By and by I 



25 

heard the step of one of the boys who had come in to 
carry out my remains and got him to fetch the other 
blanket which we rolled about the bundle I had already 
made, then we tied the whole with ropes and lugged it 
out into the light of day where we were joined by the 
rest of the tribe and sat down to talk it over. Then, as 
the sun was getting low, we cut a few holes in the two 
blankets so that the cat could breathe and as I had done 
my fair share I let the others tote the bundle up to the 
camp. When we reached home we got a dry goods box 
and by putting slats on its open side made a cage for the 
bobcat and after a good deal of trouble and not a few 
scratches we managed to get him inside and to nail a 
slat over the place where he went in, he all the time 
hissing and spitting and mussing up things. Then we 
put a dish of water in the box in case he should be dry 
and a bit of meat to serve if he should be hungry and 
piling a lot of stones on top of the cage to hold it in 
place we rested from our toil and went in to supper. Ruin 
went in with us which was a mistake for when we lit 
our pipes and went out to make the cat secure for the 
night no cat was there; in some way he had pushed off 
one of the slats and had squeezed through a hole not 
much bigger than my fist. During our supper we got into 
a dispute over the way in which we should spend the 
money we would get for the cat and said hard things 
to each other, but now we all shook hands and with no 
spoken word each of us crept off alone to bed — all but 
me, that is, for Ruin went with me as usual and even he 
seemed to be peeved over something. 



26 

And so we lost the cat and I suppose he went on his 
way and lived out his life as the pirate of the wood, and 
that he finally died and went to his cat heaven, if there 
be one. And Ruin, he of the sickle tail and the jib ear, 
Dick took him home the next day, and as we parted at 
the railroad station, never again to meet on earth, I saw 
Ruin on the platform, looking wistfully up at the car 
window where I sat — looking as only a loving dog can 
look, straight into my eyes — and it haunted me for 
weeks; I never parted more unwillingly from any two- 
legged friend. And the boys, as I have said we never 
met again and so far as I know they have all passed 
beyond the great divide. Dick sewed my shirts across 
the waist, making them no thoroughfare, but what of 
it — I forgive him. Beef put the salt in the sugar bowl 
and thereby spoiled my coifee, but I bear him no malice, 
and then again I paid my debts at the time and in my 
own way. They are gone, each to his appointed place 
and I hope some day to see them all again. The shadows 
lengthen, the evening star gleams in the west, the harvest 
moon hangs in the sky like a golden platter, the night 
Cometh when no man can work, so now to sleep, and to 
dream, perchance, of the best life of all, that of the 
out-of-doors. 




LiBRftRV OF CONGR^ 



0002 894 555 3 _^ 




